Deez Interviews: Meet the NYT political reporter who’s got the deets on Russia, 2017 news cycle sanity, and the NYT's best meatballs

What up, Deezers! Today’s interview is a real treat: The Times’ Nicholas Fandos graciously took time off impeachment watch (<- our words/fantasy, not his) to talk about getting swerved on by Tom Cotton, the importance of comfy shoes, and what covering Congress is ~actually~ like on this cRaZy ride called 2017.

The interviewee: Nicholas Fandos (follow him on the tweeter @npfandos)

The job: Reporter for The New York Times

The hustle: I cover Congress, so I spend most of my week at the Capitol. The Times has four reporters stationed on Capitol Hill full time, and we each have different subject areas we’re responsible for. For me, it’s covering issues related to foreign policy, veterans, and most fun, the various investigations that are trying to figure out what the hell happened between Russia and the Trump campaign during last year’s election.

Tell us more about the actual day-to-day of what’s probably the most insane job in media today:

Some days I write nothing. Some days I write three stories. Sadly, the latter is becoming more common, especially since sexual harassment disclosures started coming up in Congress last month. Our congressional editor usually helps me make decisions about what’s worth my time on a given day. And since I am new to all this, he also helps make what I write fairer, more comprehensive, and more historically aware — three things that the Times sees as its hallmarks (and hopefully usually provides).

Literally speaking, I sit in a lot of long hearings. I stand in hallways for hours on end looking for this or that lawmaker I need to talk to. In between, I write stories on my phone or at my cubby-hole of a desk in the Senate press gallery and warily eye the competition.

The Russia coverage follows a slightly different template. These investigations are being done in secret and usually we are feeling around in the dark to find some new kernel of information. This reporting relies on a lot of tips, hushed conversations and calls with lawyers. For a newbie like me, it would also be impossible without the patience of a crack team of national security and investigative reporters who have been chipping away at this stuff one story at a time. Usually, I am trying to make their load a little lighter.

Political reporting, especially these days, is a hella competitive game. How do you maintain an edge?

This sounds a little basic, I know, but I start by trying to stay focused. There is so much information moving around the political atmosphere at all times — gossip, news alerts, tweets, competitors, on and on — that I find to get ahead or really just get anything done, I have to choose what to pay attention to and what to ignore.

I am constantly telling myself to be organized and relentless. In my experience, scoops and the kind of hard-won details that make stories richer and more valuable for readers come from two things: Knowing who to call on when and not being afraid to keep pushing sources, over and over and over. Drinks and coffees often help smooth things over.

You can’t get the right quote or the right information if you don’t ask the right question. And you can’t ask the right questions if you have no idea what you’re talking about. So I spend a lot of my time reading background material and just asking colleagues and experts on a given subject to explain things to me.

Honestly, though, I feel like the most helpful thing to me has been watching the journalists I respect do their work and then closely reading what they produce. I didn’t go to J school, so I am a big believer in learning by watching and doing.

What is something about the work of political reporting that would surprise most people?

I think good political reporting, or congressional reporting anyway, is about physically being there. I spend a lot of my (dispiritingly long) days standing in various ornately decorated hallways regretting that I still have not managed to buy more comfortable shoes — waiting to ask questions of the people I am writing about in person. The surprise is that they usually answer.

In this news cycle, how do you NOT burn out / pass out from lack of sleep?

Spoiler: I do. Not so much the passing out part actually, despite the fact that I am now off caffeine for stomach-related issues.

The harder thing for me is keeping my mind fresh and engaged. Sometimes I am better at this than others. Constraining Twitter to certain times helps. Getting seven or eight hours of sleep is important to me. So is exercising when I can and trying to build out some time during the weekend to just put away my phone and computer for a little while. Being in a long-term relationship also helps, frankly: Having another person to pay attention to, worry about, care for, have fun with.

What story are you most proud of writing this year?

The torrent of news this year has kind of wiped out my memory (see above), so I will go with something fairly recent. Last week, I reported based on some correspondence shared with me by sources that a conservative operative with deep-ties to the N.R.A. had reached out to the Trump campaign in May 2016 to try to set up a back-channel between Vlad Putin and Donald Trump.

It is unclear if the outreach went anywhere and, as far as we know now, Trump and Putin did not meet, but the piece allowed me to really draw out what it actually looked like for Russia to interfere with our political space. As I wrote, the outreach showed how “as Mr. Trump closed in on the nomination, Russians were using three foundational pillars of the Republican Party — guns, veterans and Christian conservatives — to try to make contact with his unorthodox campaign.”

Also, it was a scoop that none of my competitors had, which always feels damn good, especially when you are new to a beat.

The Times came out with stringent social media guidelines earlier this year as an attempt to update the idea of an "objective reporter" for 2017. What’s that been like for you?

To be honest, my Twitter presence is lame as hell and our internal policies have not at all changed that. I basically promote my own work and that of my colleagues and retweet stray facts or bits of emerging information that are relevant to what I report on.

Part of the reason is temperamental: I’ve just never jived with Twitter as a medium. Part of it is calculated: As a young newspaper reporter with way more on my plate in terms of reporting and writing than I can handle as it is, I feel like I am better served pouring all my energy into that work, which my bosses follow and readers pay for, than into crafting a clever or biting tweet.

For me, the harder part comes at parties or when I visit family and the conversation inevitably turns to Trump or some pressing political issue. People make certain assumptions about my politics based on where I work, but I try not to give them reason to think that I am biased in what I do. I’ve tried to develop some other ways of talking: providing “professional analysis” (whatever that is) rather than opinions, and avoiding particular political issues that animate me personally. I’m not sure if it works, but I am learning as I go.

And yes, there are times where it is just flat out frustrating. But I have close family and my girlfriend to be totally honest with. And at the end of the day, I’ve found that for me as a person, I kind of prefer engaging with politics as a journalist anyway.

What is the weirdest interaction you've had with a politician/someone on Capitol Hill?

More interactions than I’d like go like this:

There is a reception room just off the floor of the Senate where reporters like me can go to nag senators as they come on and off the floor for votes or speeches. One day not too long ago, I was there looking for members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is doing a Russia investigation, to try to get details about a secretive meeting they’d had a few hours earlier.

Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, is one of those members and up he walked, right to the doorway that separates the reception room, where tired-eyed journalists like me can stand, from the chamber, where I adamantly cannot.

“Senator Cotton,” I said, “Do you mind if I ask you a question?”

He nodded and says something like “sure.” This seemed like a good start, considering Cotton’s reputation as, let’s say, less than cuddly with reporters, so I rattled off my question.

In response, he stared at me and deadpanned: “I said you could ask me a question. I didn’t say I’d answer it.” Then he turned on his heel and walked back into the chamber.

What is a cool, lesser-known perk about working at the Grey Lady?

The Times’ Washington Bureau has a pretty badass cooking club that gets together once a month or so. We have a theme, and everyone cooks something impressive, and then we eat and drink it. Scott Shane (one of the best national security reporters in the game) could have a second career selling his meatballs, if you ask me. Last year, we even ended up in an episode of Ina Garten’s Food Network show.

Oh, and 10 percent off at all Dunkin Donuts.

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Um BRB calling up Robert Mueller myself because this was some MAJOR intel. Again, you can follow Fandos’ work here, and when he’s all famous and Woodward-Bernsteining it, someone please make sure that Tom Cotton scene gets into the movie version.

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